


Out of the Woods

by navaan



Category: Fables - Willingham
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 21:11:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3462233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bigby had his reasons to never want to be anything but the Big Bad Wolf. But then things changed and he learned that maybe he can embrace another side of himself – the human one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> You can also read and comment on Livejournal [here](http://navaan.livejournal.com/189245.html).

Once upon a time in the dark, dark woods there lived a wolf. He was the proudest and strongest beast and creatures near and far trembled in fear of his cruel nature. Who could help it chose to never cross his path. Nobody wanted to be the next meal of the Big Bad Wolf. 

He preyed on the weak, because he had learned to hate weakness. He preyed on the strong as he had learned the only way to grow stronger was by not fearing anyone, by being _stronger_. 

Now he was strong and feared, but once he had been the runt of the litter. Like not many creatures he'd tasted betrayal and hatred early in his life. But part of him remembered that it had started with loyalty and love for a mother who had been a beautiful and strong wolf until love had led her to her doom. He knew that there was someone out there who he didn't want to think about, but who might tell him he was more than _just_ a wolf, could be _more_ than just wolf, had just to embrace that there was something in him that _wasn't_ wolf. It didn't matter that sometimes the wind whispered in his ear of the wonders of the world. He didn't care about that. He was the strongest and most fiercest of beasts and he was feared. Nothing else mattered. And one day he would be strong enough to kill that one person who had faulted his mother, never embracing anything about himself that wasn't beast.

Humans were for killing. Whatever else should he care about?

* * *

Once upon a time there lived a big bad wolf inside the forests sprawling all the lands. He went where he wanted to go. Prey was always plenty and only few were strong enough to even go after him. Whatever went on inside the woods he knew of it and made sure to keep a hold of his hunting grounds.

No longer was he a young cup, weak and in need of protection; no longer was he a young and reckless wolf who could be tricked by a woodsman.

He was the beast who put fear into the hearts of men.

He barely remembered the little runt who'd lost a mother.

He barley remembered that once he'd had brothers, wolves like him.

He was alone, but he was strong. 

The woods were his and everybody knew it. 

Nothing else mattered.

* * *

Once upon a time the enemy came, enslaving all the lands and crushing all resistance. In a deep black forest a wolf had grown in both size and strength and he watched the armies kill and maim and put fear into the weak, fear into the strong, fear into the innocent. And he waited for the day when they would try to put fear into him.

The Big Bad Wolf knew no mercy. But in those days he remembered that hating those who were stronger than you was were it had started so many years ago. So he looked at the humans running to his forests in desperation and when he wasn't hungry he let them pass him without pouncing. He even looked at the animals crossing his path without much interest. 

But when the armies came, he knew he'd found new prey.

And this was how the hunt changed.

He met Snow White in the middle of a war that everyone was fighting, but that had become a personal crusade for him against the Adversary trying to encroach on his forests, his hunting ground, his way of life. A princess, a queen once, she looked nothing more than a dirty scrap of a girl, like all the other prisoners the soldiers of the Adversary were herding along through the woods.

He overlooked her at first.

The soldiers were what drew his attention. He set upon the soldiers of his enemy, not planning to rescue anyone, simply showing those who dared to challenge him who had the upper hand. And if he'd found some prey to be devoured? Just as well.

This could have been the story's end. Instead a princess in rags dared to stand up, unafraid and challenging him with nothing but a breakable human sword.

It should have made him laugh.

But he knew this one was different. Peculiar. 

So for the first time in centuries, he made a deal. A witch had guarded a doorway deep inside the woods and like all things that went on in his territory, he knew of it. Now _he_ guarded it.

The princess looked at him defiantly and nodded as he set out his terms, let him have a taste of her to make sure she was not one of the soldiers who always tasted like old magic and new trickery. _Not_ human.

The last thing she said to him, before she made her way through the doorway to another world was: “Thank you. I won't forget you.”

Her sent stayed with him long after she has left the homelands, and so did the memory of her fearlessness.

He wouldn't forget her either.

* * *

Perhaps he was lonely.

He couldn't say.

He had never felt lonely before.

But he couldn't shake the memory of that one human woman – and he didn't stop bringing over Fables to the world on the other side of the magic doorway till the day that he made the decision to leave the familiar forests behind for new hunting grounds, after the streams of refugees had dwindled and the troupes of the Adversary had proven to be too dangerous for one lone wolf, even if he was the strongest of them all.

He didn't like to admit it, but he knew he was fighting a loosing battle.

And perhaps he longed for something. A home. A pack. A different life.

* * *

All his life he had known that he could be more than just wolf, that his shape was only one shape he could take. After all his mother had been wolf and his hated father was the North Wind. He knew he possessed some powers that no other wolf had every had. With a beatific smile he remembered blowing the homes of three tasty pigs to bits and pieces.

He _knew_ all that.

Knew that the wolves in these Carpathian mountains thought he must be a god among them, because he was wolf, but more than wolf. Set apart by what he was and wasn't.

Not for the first time he wondered what it would take to live among others, among Fables who remembered who he was, remembered the woods and the hunt and the fear. For the first time in his long life he realized that he was pondering what it would be like to take a human form and go live among humans. To life among Fables. Among his own kind.

But who in their right mind would invite _him_ to live in their midst?

* * *

“I'm glad, you came back with me, Bigby,” Snow said and smiled at him. She was trying to be nice, he knew, and she made a big show whenever they met in public of how she wasn't afraid of him. It wasn't a big deal for her, of course, as he knew she'd never been afraid of him in the first place. “You're doing a good job.”

“The job does itself mostly. People are afraid to cross me,” he reminded her, taking a long drag of his pipe. He didn't like the way the smoke numbed his senses of smell and taste, but he found it was the only thing that made living among people bearable. 

Snow laughed at that. He hadn't seen her laugh freely like this once since he arrived, always behaving with proper composure and always in control, even when things around her were dissolving into chaos. “Some people think the same about me. It's who we are.”

“Why? Did you have an improper eating habit I haven't heard about yet back in the Homelands?”

She laughed again, still free and without holding back. “What happened back in the Homelands has no meaning here in Fable Town, Bigby. You'll see. People will forget. Give it some time.”

“Do they?” he asked honestly, because all of them had complicated history and here in exile it seemed like some people were even more determined to hold onto them. Old grudges, memories of old glory and lost riches were all some of the Fables living here had left. 

The smile vanished from her fair face. “No, I suppose they don't. We can all work towards having a wonderful life here now, but that doesn't mean we don't all remember who we are – or were. Happily ever after is just a story even for us.”

He grinned at her, enjoying how she stared at him, as if she was contemplating how closely under the surface the wolf was living these days – as if that wasn't obvious. 

There was no happily ever after, but it was good to be somewhere where you were needed, even if you weren't exactly _wanted_ by all. He greeted Flychatcher who smiled at them timidly as they passed him in the muddy street and he suppressed a snarl, still uncomfortable with people looking at him with anything but fear.

At least he'd found the interesting princess again. Or she had found him.

Even if that didn't make it a happily ever after ending, at least it meant he wasn't alone. He had a community to protect. Purpose. And with Snow around at least he had something to look forward to every day. And with so many Fables arriving to make their home in this mundie world he'd not run out of things to keep him busy. 

These people weren't his prey anymore, but his pack. Even when they despised him, and didn't want him here.

He knew where he belonged now.

They were Fables. They were beyond “Once Upon A Time” now. It was all about what you made of your own life now.

And he could work with that.


End file.
